The Day Jesus Disappeared

 We five cousins always went to the park on the Fourth of July. In 1960, the weather was cruelly muggy, but we ran, played, and picnicked until we were exhausted.

Darkness crept over us in slow motion. We spread our blanket on the hillside along with a gazillion other sweaty, sunburnt, malodorous kids. Soon, thousands of blood-sucking mosquitos joined the fray, buzzing their praise to their Hexapoda god for this July fourth feast.

Finally, the fireworks began. For a brief while, brilliant colors and loud noises filled the sky. Babies screamed; mothers oo-ed and ah-ed as rockets exploded above us.

When the last red glare faded, a fog of sulfur dioxide enveloped the crowd. We packed our now soggy blanket and food scraps and headed home.

Approaching the house, we knew something was wrong. A harsh light poured through every door and window. Loud lamenting echoed from within. Aunt Gena ran toward us, shouting, “Mam-maw is dead!” through her tears. “She died while you were at the park.”

Adults carefully ushered us past the hospital bed in our living room where she lay. We were not allowed to look. Everyone was crying, praying, and talking at the same time as they took us to the kitchen. It was hours before the hearse arrived to take her away. The adults took turns with us.

Some smoked cigarettes or drank coffee. They said very little. Our grandmother had been sick for a long time. We had watched her grow weaker. Now she was gone. 

My mother finally came to put me to bed. I got into my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and crawled under the covers in my room. She sat beside me for a few minutes. “She’s better off now,” mom said between her sobs. “She’s with Jesus now. She doesn’t have any more pain. She’s in Heaven now.”

But the sounds of weeping downstairs belied this assertion.

Mom turned off the lights. She closed the door. I lay still in the darkness. I was alone, sad, confused, and afraid.

I raised my hand toward the ceiling. I prayed really hard. “Mam-maw, if you’re there, please touch my hand.” I held my hand there as long as I could manage it, but no touch was forthcoming. I repeated this several times.

I tried again. This time I addressed the hero of my childhood. “Abraham Lincoln,” I said, “if you’re there, touch my hand!” Surely, he was there but, just as surely, there was no response.

Upping the ante, I tried again. “Jesus,” if you’re there, please touch my hand.” Again, the room was still. No one and nothing touched my hand. 

Finally, I cried in desperation, “God, if you’re there, touch my hand.” I was taught that God could do anything. I waited for the longest time. My arm grew excruciatingly tired. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Did my family know I was hurting? Did they know that my heart was breaking? Were there any words, deeds, or thoughts that might have given me more comfort? But we were in such dysfunction; all of us were shut up in our own bubbles of pain, loss and shame. We were incapable of reaching out to each other.

I dropped off to sleep. Mam-Maw – and Lincoln, Jesus, and even God –went the way of Santa Claus for me that night. I was bereft, in a dark and lonely world. 

I wonder now if my whole career in ministry has been one long attempt to get Mam-Maw to touch my hand. Has all the scholarship, all the travel, all the meditation, all the conversations down all the years – has all that merely been my feeble attempt to get Jesus – or God, or even Abraham Lincoln – just to reassure me that they were there? Just to touch my hand? Perhaps, one day, they will. But that night, I sought, and I did not find. I knocked; the door did not open. I called. There was no response. 

The Holy Mobile

If you have ever visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you may have seen a great and colorful mobile by Alexander Calder, one of America’s foremost modern sculptors. Calder’s mobiles are huge, welded, metallic surfaces, delicately balanced and suspended so as to move constantly with the slightest currents of air.

Calder himself was one of the great and colorful characters in American life. He was noted for his love of double entendres, his shocking bluntness, and his willingness to take great artistic and personal risks. He was not noted for spirituality, piety, or for having even an inkling of religious sensibility. So the art world was puzzled when he named this Philadelphia mobile The Holy Ghost. Essays were written, and theologians speculated. What could this possibly mean?

Then someone noticed that the beautiful fountain at Logan Square lay on a direct axis between the art museum and the Philadelphia City Hall. A grandiose statue of William Penn and four huge carved eagles all had been mounted on that building. They were the work of Calder’s grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, an immigrant from Scotland. The fountain itself had been carved by Calder’s father, Alexander Stirling Calder, another prominent sculptor of the city. So naturally, when the modem “Sandy” Calder installed his work, he thought of… Father, Son, and… Holy Ghost!

For many people in today’s world, even in the church, talk about the Holy Spirit carries just about this level of importance. If it is thought of at all, it is considered little more than an inside joke and as little understood. It has been called the “poor relation” of the Trinity, a bit of an embarrassment to modern minds. 

In the long history of the church, on the other hand, Pentecost was and is considered the third great festival of our faith. It brings to fruition and makes real the work silently begun at Christmas and declared to the world at Easter. It celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church on earth, and the gifts of the Spirit given to us for the transformation of the world. The Holy Spirit is God’s way of being “present” now. It is “in” the Holy Spirit that we discover both our unique individuality and our deepest communion with others, our freedom, and our most intimate love. The fruits of the Spirit, Paul wrote to the Galatians, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control.

In the creeds, the Holy Spirit is worshipped as “the Lord, the Giver of Life.” The symbols of the Spirit are many; fire, dove, and wind are among the most well-known. Calder’s title for his Philadelphia mobile may have been more of a double entendre than he intended. For in 1951 he wrote, “The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe or a part thereof. This is a rather large model.” Twenty years later, he emphasized, “I work from a very large live model.” That, my friends, sounds like the Spirit to me!

© Budd Friend-Jones
Faith in a Minor Key

The Harrowing of Hell

It's Easter Sunday. In church today, a strange thought invaded my brain. What if we didn’t have present participles? That is a strange thought, don't you agree? But seriously, what if we weren’t able to say, “Christ is risen!” repeatedly? What if we had to use active verbs or gerunds like “Christ rises” or “Christ is rising”?

Personally, I like these better. Far from announcing a fait accompli, a “done deal” or a state of being that never changes, they suggest a dynamic and continuous movement toward a higher or better level of reality. They are active and open-ended, and incomplete.

In this icon, Christ is one with the rest of us as he rises from hell. Eve and Adam represent all of humanity; Christ holds each one by the hand as he rises. Orthodox theologians agree that this represents the redemption of all humankind, even back to the beginning. There is a latent universalism in this icon, even a primitive D.E.I. (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion). This icon, known variously as The Harrowing of Hell, Christ’s Descent into Hades, Anastasis, or Resurrection, is the primary Easter icon within Orthodox Churches.

For me, “Christ is rising” offers more hope than “Christ is risen.” In Palestine, Ukraine, or Sudan, in the midst of the most horrible political polarization, in hospitals or unemployment offices, “Christ is rising” offers the possibility - even the inevitability - that positive change will yet be realized. If Christ rises, so may we.

© Rev, Gilbert Friend-Jones

See https://www.orthodoxroad.com/christs-descent-into-hell-icon-explanation/

Tree of Life

Michelle Cromer was hiking in a forest in the Lake Arenal region of Costa Rica. She came upon a huge and ancient ceiba tree. The ceiba trees were considered holy in Maya-influenced pre-Columbian civilizations; they are called “The Tree of Life.” It was said that their roots lead to the underworld; their trunk is the world in which we live, and the tree’s spreading branches hold up the sky. She had an “ah-hah!” moment:

         “As I stood under her creaking boughs, swaying, crooked limbs, overhanging branches coated thickly in pale green moss, I could feel a distinct and familiar shift in me… Standing there, looking up, I did the most unexpected thing – I dropped to my knees and wept uncontrollably. The rush of emotions – joy, peace and most of all, love - was so unexpected. It felt like the tree – this tree – was welcoming me home.” [i]

 “Trees are invitations to think about time and to travel in it the way they do, by standing still and reaching out, and down,” wrote Rebecca Solnit[ii]. Most of us have had “ah-hah!”  experiences in life – seeing the Northern Lights for the first time, standing beneath a giant Redwood, or sitting with a dying friend, to name a few.

When I entered the sanctuary of Peace Church (UCC) in Duluth, MN for the first time, I was overcome with a similar feeling. I felt strangely “at home” here - as if I had been here all of my life. It was as if my evangelical past and my progressive present were coming together in new ways. I was immediately impressed by the congregation’s choice of two striking works of art to guide their meditations. Jesus of the People by my friend, Janet McKenzie, hangs prominently in its worship space. Janet had used a Black female model for this Jesus. For that audacity she won the National Catholic Reporter’s worldwide art competition in the year 2000. 

More surprisingly for this decidedly Protestant congregation was a copy of the iconic Our Lady of Guadalupe, said to have appeared miraculously on Juan Diego's original tilma. I doubt that one can find either in the sanctuary of any other UCC congregation in America.
As I walked toward three large crosses that dominate the front wall, and toward the Table and these pictures, I felt physically pulled toward the right side of the sanctuary. In that moment, I saw Leah Yellowbird’s painting, The Tree of Life. I would like to say it called to me, but that would be wrong. It screamed at me. “Come here!” it demanded. I did. And I wept.

I don’t know the journey that this exquisite painting took to find its way into this place, and into my consciousness. Yellowbird said that she created the entire piece in a busy public space. People came and went, and came back again - asking questions, making suggestions and generally encouraging her. It took four years.

Leah Yellowbird[iii] identifies strongly with her First Nations Algonquin-Metis and Anishinaabe heritage. At an early age she learned traditional beading patterns from her aunt whose influence you can see in her work today. After a difficult time in her life, she moved physically to Grand Rapids, and artistically into painting, but she retained the

precision and delicate beauty of the finest beadwork of her tradition. Today her work is displayed in museums throughout the Midwest. Her online website contains some of the most beautiful artwork you will ever want to see.

 The Tree of Life painting has its roots in a period of turmoil and deep trauma, she said, but when I look at her painting, I don’t see the suffering. “Nevertheless,” Yellowbird said to me, “if they are honest, most artists will tell you that their art begins in trauma.” 

 The Tree of Life appears in many traditions around the world. In our Christian tradition, it appears at the beginning of Time, and at its ending, and throughout human history.  

 Yellowbird stresses that this is not a Christian work of art, at least not explicitly or literally so. Notice, she points out, that this Tree stands on the back of a turtle, Turtle Island.

 Robin Wall Kimmerer, among others, tells the Haudenosaunee creation story this way:

 At one time humans lived in the Sky world. At its center stood the Tree of Life. One day a fierce wind blew through the heavens. It toppled this great tree. Where the tree once stood, there was a hole. 

 A young woman, Gizhgokwe (who also is called Skywoman), walked over to the hole and peered

down. She saw only a deep, dark blackness. She came closer to the hole. And closer. The soil beneath her feet began to crumble, and she started to fall into the darkness. Quickly, she grabbed a branch from the Tree of Life, but it broke off in her hand. Into the abyss she fell.[iv]

 But it was not an abyss. At the bottom, there was water. Nothing but water. For as far as anyone could see, water, and water dwelling creatures. 

A flock of geese saw her falling. Knowing she was not a water creature, they flew up and caught her in their wings. She found herself sheltered in the soft feathers of the geese.

 A great ridge back snapping turtle swam slowly beneath Gizhgokwe and offered its back. The geese brought her gently down upon the back of the turtle.

All the sea creatures understood that this was not enough. She would need earth. They remembered that there is mud at the bottom of the sea. One by one they tried to retrieve it, but all of them failed. Finally, a little muskrat descended into the depths where, unfortunately, it died. When its body rose to the surface, they found a small dollop of mud in its paw. 

 Gizhgokwe spread this mud over the back of the turtle. She sprinkled seeds from the branch she  had brought with her from the Tree of Life. She danced, and the world became green with every kind of wild plant.

Hail Mary, Pietà

 When Elizabeth greeted Mary, she practically shouted her own version of the Ave Maria: “Blessed are you among women!” This is how we want to see her: Blessed, exalted, favored, chosen.  We dress her images in the finest gold, silver, fabrics and lace. She is the epitome of strength, beauty, and serenity.

We forget the elder Simeon’s blessing and prediction that a sword would pierce her soul. We forget the terror she must have felt when Herod’s soldiers came looking for her child, slaughtering so many children as they did so. 

We forget the horrors of this young mother who gathered up her newborn child in the middle of the night, her desperate flight across borders into an alien country, her becoming a refugee, a stranger in a strange land. We forget that, for years, she wondered furtively over Egyptian roads and countryside, struggling with language and laws, all the while seeking shelter and food.

We forget the panic she must have felt when Jesus went missing for three days, missing in a large anonymous crowd, missing somewhere in the tense urban streets and back alleys of Jerusalem; no one knew where he might have gone.

Hail Mary? We forget the apparent rejection by Jesus himself when she and her other children came to talk with him. “Who is my mother?” he said. Then, pointing to the crowd, he said, “These are my mother and my siblings. Those who do the will of God, they are my family.” Did this sword pierce her soul?

We forget her agony as she helplessly witnessed her child's arrest by brutal Roman guards, his trial in a sham court, and his scourging in a public setting while the crowds jeered and mocked. We forget her despair as Jesus staggered under the weight of his cross on the road to Golgotha. We forget, finally, that she watched life ebb from his suffering body, the same body she brought forth from her own.

Hail Mary? We forget that, as the sun descended in the sky, she accompanied his broken body to a borrowed tomb. We forget the heavy rock that barred her from giving a farewell kiss to her beloved child.

Alas! An even greater pain may have penetrated her soul. 

Did she ever know this child? This child who lived in two realities simultaneously? Do we ever really know the “other,” even when the “other” is our own child? 

Judith Dupré writes,

“We cannot know the inner recesses of another person’s soul, those mysterious gulfs that mark the inevitable distance between individuals. As parents or caregivers, we plan, hope, and nurture, but the day comes when our children let go of our hands and venture forth into the world to taste it on their own terms, and that world—their world—is not ours to know…”

Clara Park tells of her relationship with her autistic daughter:

“She moved among us every day, among us, but not of us... She existed among us, (but) she had her own being elsewhere…”

So, too, was Mary called to trust the ways of a child who was hers, but not hers… who drew his being from her and from somewhere else beyond her understanding.

Finally, we forget the survivor’s pain. “The path of the dead is in the living,” wrote Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. Regardless of how we read scripture or what we believe, these memories would never go away. These sorrows persisted within her.

For all these reasons, we say to her most tenderly, “Hall Mary, Pietà, May God be with Thee.”

©Gilbert Friend-Jones

Thirty-four Years to Go, But Who’s Counting?

I am reprinting this in honor of a friend who recently celebrated her 40th birthday.

Thirty-four years. That’s approximately how long I may have left, according to a friend. Thirty-four. The “average” man who lives to be my age can expect thirty-four years more. Since I am neither more nor less than average in most categories, why should I be different in this?

Thirty-four. Depending on your situation that may sound like a lot, or a little. To me, it’s not much. Less than a “watch in the night” according to scripture. A “little day” according to a Jewish prayer. A raindrop falling ever more swiftly toward the sea.

It doesn’t help to be reminded of what other people have done in less than thirty years. Mozart, for example. Or the young Einstein. Or Jesus. I know what I haven’t done with more. I have more questions now than answers, more longing than satisfactions.

It’s not that I want to be president or pope. I don’t envy Bill Gates. I don’t want to trade places with Donald Trump. 

But Jimmy Carter has my attention. And Desmond Tutu. And the Dalai Lama.

I don’t want to be the mayor of a major city, but I’d like to help a decent mayor create a humane community. I can’t imagine being Billy Graham or Gardner Taylor, yet I’d like to speak a few original words that console or uplift. I do not aspire to the pulpit of a “tall steeple” church; I do hope that congregations I serve will come more closely to resemble the Beloved Community for which, I think, Christ lived and died.

As I face into what may be the last third of my life, this is what I know: Wisdom and wealth are not synonymous. Wisdom and poverty are not either. Power is neither evil nor good, but necessary for the realization of either. Silence contains more truth than many words. Sharing sorrow lessens it. Nice is not bad. Deep peace is possible in the midst of great suffering, yet a serene appearance may hide the deepest pain. Soul is real, but “real” itself is puzzling. Not one of us will be truly happy until all of us are truly happy. Grace is everywhere.

It isn’t much, but it’s a beginning. After all these years, it is  

© Budd Friend-Jones

Faith in a Minor Key, 2010

Posted: July 14, 2023

Rublev's Mirror: A Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2023

Rublev's Mirror: Dancing With the Trinity

According to the Orthodox Church, an icon is written, not painted. It is not art, but a window into another and sacred dimension of reality. Its construction must follow a rigid protocol by an ordained iconographer. It becomes efficacious only after it has received the blessing of a priest.

Some icons are intimate household items. Others are national treasures. Some are credited with healing and ending famines or plagues, while others were carried into battle to assure victory. When the Bosheviks came to power, they regarded these claims as mere ignorant superstitions. The radicals among them were energetic in their attempts to wipe religion completely from the minds and the communal life of the people. The Soviet regime aggressively destroyed churches, synagogues, icons, vestments and anything else relating to religion. Countless priests, nuns, monks and religious leaders were sent to the Gulag, or worse.

Some icons were too powerful to destroy. The Trinity icon, also called the Hospitality of Abraham icon, on the cover of the bulletin was one of these. Andrei Rublev, perhaps the world’s greatest iconographer, wrote this icon over 600 years ago. It depicts the three visitors to Abraham and Sarah recorded in Genesis 18 who turned out to be either angels, messengers of God, or the actual Trinity. For centuries devout Russians traveled many miles, often on foot, to offer prayers before it at the Trinity Monastery of Saint Sergius. 

Rather than destroy it, the revolutionaries removed it to the Tretyakov Gallery where it has remained since 1929. If you visited this Moscow gallery you would inevitably find burnt candles and incense on the floor where it was displayed. It may be the most precious icon still existing, but conservators tell us it also is among the most fragile. They have argued, unsuccessfully, against any attempt to move it, even to return it to its original home. 

But Vladimir Putin has other ideas. As his war in Ukraine falters, as the Russian economy sputters, as unrest in the population grows and spreads, he is looking for support wherever he can find it. Krilill, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, is one of the few pillars on which he leans. Together, the two men are said to represent “the Mighty and the Almighty.” For decades the Russian church passionately denounced the blasphemy that their most sacred icon hung in a secular art gallery. They have always demanded its return to its rightful place. Who doesn’t see the justice of their demands?

Putin could do worse than to give in. So today  - today! - he is ignoring the world’s leading art conservators and experts, and many within the church as well. He knows the icon is extremely fragile. He knows it may be destroyed by such a move. Yet today the icon is being moved from Tretyakov to Christ the Savior Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow where it will be venerated by thousands of devoted worshippers. (Pravda)  In a few weeks, if it survives, it will be returned to its original home in the Monastery where it will undergo restoration.

Putin may be motivated by his own faith, but it is hard not to see a bit of political calculation here. For this brief moment, his gesture will be celebrated throughout Russia.It is possible, even likely, that people will turn away from the abject horror and suffering being inflicted daily on Ukraine. It’s not the first time that cynical leaders have used the cloak of piety to cover their nefarious deeds.

You and I might consider the Trinity icon to be an antique, a priceless item, perhaps, of Russian culture or spirituality, but of little spiritual value to us. We may see it as a historical memento that managed to survive the slings and arrows of an outrageous history. Some of us admire it in a curious sort of way, but most of us think nothing of ultimate value would be lost if it went away forever. 

Frankly, however, at least some of us consider the Trinity itself in the same way - an old, tarnished and cumbersome piece of theological furniture we’ve inherited and must accommodate. Distant and unknown ancestors in faith bequeathed it to us in languages we don’t even understand. We get lost in their logical labyrinths of Three-in-One theologies and One-God-in-Three-Persons explanations. We grow old with the tireless repetitions of the words, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” 

When St. Augustine tells us that the three persons of the Trinity are not the same, we get it. But then he tells us they are not separate, and it becomes confusing. Yet his final explanation is, shall we say, lovely. To Tina Turner’s great question, “What’s love got to do with it?” Augustine responds, Everything! God is the Lover, and the Beloved, and the Love they share between them. Not a bad beginning.

Joanne Woodward won an Oscar for her role in The Three Faces of Eve, but Christians say God got there first. If she could be Eve White, Eve Black and Jane at the same time, why can’t God be one, and three, at the same time? If I can be a father, a son and a husband, then why can’t God be Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit? This helps, but it doesn’t tell us very much, does it? Most of my colleagues and I just go about our work and quietly ignore the perplexities of our theological inheritance. 

Just as we are about to cart this theological contraption to the consignment store, guess who comes in the door. The feminists. The womanists. And those who would elevate hospitality to a spiritual practice. People like Dr. Karen Baker-Fletcher, Dallas;  Dr. Hannah Bacon, Chester UK; Dr. Catherine Mowry LaCugna, at Notre Dame until she died; Father Richard Rohr, Albuquerque; and so many more. Even C. S. Lewis is ringing the bell! These seminal thinkers are revolutionizing the ways we think about - and the ways we relate to - the Holy One. 

Without getting too technical on this fine Spring morning, let me just say this. For them, God is community. Fundamentally, God is relational. That’s why community is fundamental in Christian spirituality - the Beloved Community, the Church as Koinonia. The utopian at the end of time (Isaiah 25),  will be a vast, all-inclusive feast that encompasses the full diversity of creation. This is not apart from God or in addition to God. This is God. This feast is God!

C. S. Lewis once described himself as someone who “can dance no better than a centipede with wooden legs.” Yet he ultimately affirmed that God is not a static thing, not even a person, but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost… a kind of dance… The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this (divine) life is to be played out in each one of us…  each one of us has got to enter that pattern, and take (our) place in the dance.” (Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 148-150)

Each of us has got to enter the pattern, and take (our) place in the dance.

This brings us back to Andrei Rublev and his Trinity icon, his Hospitality icon. Look at the image again, the one on the front of your worship folder. The three holy visitors are at table. Perhaps this is the eucharist, or communion. We can almost feel the energy flowing between these three rather androgynous figures. There is a circular movement in this triangular composition, If we spend time with it, the figures will almost seem to move toward each other. 

Now look at it more closely. Do you see a little rectangle attached to the front of the table? What is this? There are many people who know a lot more about this than I do: historians, theologians, conservators and others. They believe that Rublev had attached a mirror to this icon. (Richard Rohr, Take Your Place At the Table, Online) 

A mirror!

If that is true, whenever we might stand or kneel before this icon to pray, we would see ourselves included at the table. We would find ourselves as one of the participants, perhaps even an equal participant, with the Holy Trinity. We would be joining the dance and becoming a receiver and a giver of holy energy. This suggests a choreographer, but who could that be? It might be other than you expect.

Choreography suggests the partnership of movement, wrote the late Catholic theologian, Catherine Mowry Lacugna. It is symmetrical but not redundant, as each dancer expresses, and at the same time fulfills, themself towards the others. In their interaction and inter-course, the dancers experience one fluid motion of encircling, encompassing, permeating, enveloping, and outstretching. They are neither leaders nor followers in the divine dance, only participants in an eternal movement of reciprocal giving and receiving, giving again and receiving again… The divine dance is fully personal and interpersonal. It expresses the essence and unity of God. The image of the dance forbids us to think of God a solitary being.  (LaCugna, God For Us, 272)

I love it when she says that there are not two sets of communion or two separate dances – one among the so-called Trinity and the other among us human beings. Rather, she affirms, there is  only one dance, and one mystery of communion. God and we are beloved partners in this dance. (Lacugna, God For Us, 274)

To participate in the divine dance  is to participate in the transforming love of God. We become the Lover, the Beloved and Love Itself. In doing so we discover one another no longer as enemies, not as Russians and Ukrainians, not as Democrats and Republicans, but as brothers, sisters and siblings -  participants together in the life and love of God. Would that Vladimir Putin - and all of us - could peer deeply into Rublev’s mirror today. It would be a different world. 

 

© Rev. Dr. Gilbert Friend-Jones

Trinity Sunday, June 4, 2023

Peace United Church of Christ

Duluth, Minnesota